#and disabled people always have

[taibhsearachd]

Looking around my house for things to block a hat on has once again led me to staring longingly at the Bone Clones website.

...look, I could buy a cheap mannequin head off Amazon, and that would probably work fine, but then I just have this MANNEQUIN HEAD in my house, and do you think I need that Stranger-ass shit in my life day to day? I do not.

A Shanidar 1 replica skull, meanwhile, is a totally reasonable $450, $500 with the stand, and also I think it would be very funny to block my knitwear using a replica Neanderthal skull that makes me cry with overwhelming affection for humanity when I look at him. IT'S A BARGAIN IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT!

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[inkskinned]

"don't make it political!" .... what proportion of death and suffering must occur before politics are involved. if this isn't political, what is even the point of any politics, ever. of democracy. the words are "by the people for the people." if i am going to be left alone by my elected representatives to "figure it out" - to undergo damage, hardship, fear. what the fuck did i elect them for. what was their job. the entire point is that they handle this shit. this is why we were supposed to be electing leaders.

poverty is political. misogyny is political. gun control is political. climate change is political. how much aid a community gets is political. what the fuck are you talking about. it's been political this whole fucking time.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[uncanny-tranny]

To any disabled person undergoing tests to find What's Wrong: I hope your results come back the way you hope and that you receive the help you need. I hope you are not denied care, I hope you are taken seriously even after this, and I hope that you will be taken care of compassionately

[creekfiend]

people act like being intentionally whimsical is inherently more annoying than being intentionally serious but why. suppose my temper is just naturally whimsical.

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[growling]

the way this website treats disabled people is actually horrendous

[adhdandcomics]

perhaps the most important question i’ve ever asked:

does anyone have tips for people trying to stop being chronically late to everything in the world that aren’t weirdly judgmental and aggressive or flat out lies

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay so I have a lot of thoughts about the whole thing of the Gerudo being a race of entirely women, with the only exception being one man born every hundred years, and that man automatically being their king. Now this worldbuilding comes from Ocarina of Time, and there's obviously a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications there, because it was 1998. And it seems that Tears of the Kingdom is sticking with the lore of Gerudo men being extremely rare and becoming the King of their people, which once again has a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications because it's 2023 and Nintendo has somehow gotten even worse about this shit.

But let's set aside the whole... everything, and look at this from just the in-universe perspective. How does it work? I mean, it's pretty clear that there is no overlap between the kings; the old ones are normally long gone by the time a new one is born, but the Gerudo manage to take care of themselves during the hangtime. So they must have an established system of government and leadership that doesn't involve a king, and somehow that system is set up in a way that does a smooth transfer of power once a new king is born and old enough to take the throne. But why bother always declaring a random guy to be your King when you already have a perfectly functional system in place?

I mean again, the whole thing has a lot of sexist implications, but we're not looking at this from a real world context, we're examining it in-universe. And we could just go the lazy route and say that their king is in charge just because he's the only man, but I don't like that. I mean come on, the Gerudo are a race of entirely women, and most of their outside problems come from Hylian men being creepy about it. They are entirely a matriarchy; there is literally no reason for their culture to have an inherent respect for men, even if the man in question is one of them. And they're desert people; they live in an extremely harsh and dangerous landscape, if they don't have their shit together, they will die. By sheer necessity, their culture needs to put a lot of value in being practical, because if they're stupid about things, people die. They really can't afford to have a shitty leader take over, and just letting some guy take the wheel doesn't really fit with the way their culture must otherwise work.

So again, why the fuck do they bother having a King?

I think it's mainly just a ceremonial position. Yes, if the guy is a good leader he'll be in charge, but if he isn't good at being a King or isn't interested in the job... fuck it, they've already got a functional government system that's been leading their people the whole time, why fix what isn't broken? The title of Gerudo King isn't about leadership or power. I think it's more about belonging. Because the Gerudo are a culture where every single one of them can be defined in the same way... and there is exactly one exception once a century. Men are considered to be inherently outsiders at the best of times, and more often they're enemies. A man born into this culture is a natural outsider; he is completely unique, and that means he doesn't really fit into his community. And well... when someone is fundamentally different from the rest of their community, they tend to be ostracized.

So I think that's why the position of Gerudo King exists. It isn't about them needing or even wanting a man to lead them. The title of King doesn't need to involve any leadership at all. It's about giving the man born every century a place in their society. It's a way of saying yes, you are one of us, you are a Gerudo, you belong here, you are wanted and you are loved.

The Gerudo know that every hundred years, one of their children will be fundamentally different from all of his peers. And so their society is built to ensure that a child who is completely different from them will still be loved and accepted. He will always have a place in their society. He doesn't need to earn their love, he has it just for existing. These are his people.

The title of Gerudo King isn't an inherent position of authority. It's a promise of acceptance.

[swordsonnet]

self-proclaimed radical leftists: in the communist utopia that exists only in my head, everyone will work, by which i mean a full-time job in the post-industrial revolution sense. this is because work is obviously the only way one can contribute to society, and everyone who doesn't work is a parasite that will be eradicated in my Communist Utopia™. i don't even care about the products or purpose of people's labour because, as everyone knows, employment equals morality and so having a job is inherently virtuous and not having a job makes you a lazy leech who doesn't deserve to live. trust me, this is a very communist idea. i'm practically an expert because i read 1.5 tweets about marx.

what? omg why are you making this about disability, i was obviously talking about normal people 🙄 if you're disabled, you have an excuse to be a useless waste of resources who can't contribute anything 😊 in my ✨ Communist Utopia ✨, you don't have to work if you're not able to. don't worry, we'll have rigorous and dehumanising tests to determine if you're disabled enough or if you're just a lazy faker! this process is infallible and has no drawbacks whatsoever for disabled people. have you considered that maybe you're the real ableist for criticising me? 🤔 anyway, have i mentioned how much i love employment and also the taste of boot leather

[muffinapologist]

My hot take is that I don’t think you should have to prove that you’re disabled to get accommodations

“But the abled people might take up resources” have you considered that resources for disabled people shouldn’t be limited in the first place?

[bmpmp3]

finding out ur coworker is way older than you thought and having to very quickly reorient how you talk to them

[anarcho-commeownism]

pretentious cynical fucks that think solarpunk is an apolitical cozy pseudo-punk movement are so unimaginably stupid. like okay whatever go off and have ur glorious revolution. i'm gonna be here making community and planting a garden and dismantling systems of oppression brick by brick in the communities around me, building something new and beautiful in their place. maybe you should give it a shot.

[uncanny-tranny]

Hey, if you have speech impediments, you are so amazing.

If you stutter or have a lisp or misspeak easily or you have a flat affect or a limited verbal vocabulary or if your voice is AAC or if you just have a difference in your vocality, you are so incredibly important and amazing.

Just know that your voice is yours. Nobody will ever be able to truly take it away. Your voice is part of you, and you deserve to make it as true to you as you deem fit. I hope you have the space to grow with your voice and whatever about it makes it unique.

[creekfiend]

whoever is elected president of the United States will immediately become a war criminal upon being sworn in if they are not one already and captain america was already about nationalism and if you didn't notice the MCU being racist about arabs in the very first fucking iron man film WHICH WAS SPONSORED BY THE US MILITARY I simply do not know what to tell you and I'm going to dunk all of you into a big old bucket of ice until you are damp and chilly